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Saturday, 11 February 2012

CROWN - THE ONE ALBUM REVIEW

Crown is a two piece Atmospheric Sludge Metal Band from France

I have to thank the band for contacting to review their brilliant band’s debut release – “The One”. A 5 song 32 minute masterpiece of Atmospheric Sludge Metal.

"Crown was formed in the Summer of 2011 and comprises of two men, two guitars, a voice and machine."

And that is how Crown describe themselves. But even that description doesn't prepare you for what is in store.

The band play an intense blend of Sludge Metal mixed in with elements of Post-Metal that paints a truly haunting picture of loud heavy riffage that goes across elements of Ambient Post-Rock as well.

The One is full of original and superb Sludge/Post-Metal riffs with great vocals to match. For a debut release this album shows what a truly talented band Crown actually is. Their music makes you feel alive when listening to it. It has a great sense of purpose to it and has more ideas flowing through it that you care to imagine.

Crown are not afraid to experiment with their music by blending different ambient noise effects with loud and angry Sludge/Post-Metal riffs kicking in now and again. For a two man band these guys are loud as anything I have heard this year. Probably the loudest Sludge/Post-Metal duo I heard since Talbot.

But Crown are their own band. They have their own ideas on how to play their own blend of superb Sludge/Post-Metal music. Crown bring an amazing fresh experimental take on Atmospheric Sludge Metal.

The 5 tracks on show are superb examples of how to do Sludge/Post-Metal brilliantly and most importantly - Originality. It’s full of passionate riffs and vocals from a band not scared to take risks with their music.

The instrumental work is simply a master class of Sludge/Post-Metal. Especially on tracks “Mare”, “Cosmogasm” and the brilliant 9:30 minute epic “Orthodox”.

Crown are a band brimming full of ideas and they show only a small percentage of that on this superb release. This is a band that rightly could be going places. They have produced an album that totally astounded me with my first listen. Truth be told I loved this album from the first time I listened to it and I haven’t stopped listening to it since.

It still impresses me with each and every listen. At times it feels I am discovering a part of the song I missed before. Its a very multi-layered release that makes you think to what you are listening to. So you will need more than one listen to get the bigger picture. But when you do your like Neo discovering The Matrix for the first time.

As that classic film says “You have to see it for yourself.” Well the same goes for this. “You have to feel and listen the music for yourself”. But by then your hooked and it’s pretty hard to get out.

Hopefully Crown will be gaining a lot more exposure due to this superb album. The guys deserve so they can make more brilliant releases like this one.

The album is brilliantly produced especially with all the ambient noises mixed in with the more traditional Sludge/Post-Metal riffs on show. This is another brilliant reason why 2012 is shaping up to be a great year for underground Sludge/Post-Metal music so far.

This is without a doubt my fave release of 2012 so far. I know its early and I have raved on about Behold The Monolith, Bezoar and Rituals (which all will definitely make my Top Albums of 2012) but Crown’s The One is my fave album of the year so far.

Band Submissions

To those bands who have recently issued their first demo or album via bandcamp and would like to be featured on our 666 Pack Review or considered for a full review or stream please contact Aaron via email including your EPK, band bio, album file or download code, including artwork.

To those bands issuing their sophomore record and so on and would like to be considered for a review or stream on the blog. Get in touch using the same address above

We will consider bands from any genre but exclusively stoner, sludge, doom, psych, post-metal, experimental, black-metal etc. (Whilst I would like to respond to every email, this is not always possible.) Thanks